User blog:UsnaBolt922/Reviewing XXXTentacion's "Bad Vibes Forever" Album
Well, X has come a long way from his early days of the hardcore rap. Ever since his death, there have been more people supporting him than ever, and the label have dropped many singles and albums of his work (though some may find it questionable). I've personally been a fan of X since 2017, and I've seen him grow as a person long before his death. So here we are today. The last album, Bad Vibes Forever, has finally been released. And it's... quite interesting... did it end X's career with a banger? Or did it fell short of expectations? One reason why many fans and critics criticized the previous album, skins, was because most of the tracks felt too short and incomplete, and that X didn't finish these songs for a reason. I personally didn't like skins as much as I did with ? and 17. However, there were only 10 tracks, and it was a quick listen with a 19:43 long listen. However, BVF (I'll use this acronym from this point on) has 25 tracks with a runtime of 57:24. Yet the longest song on the album was just 4 minutes long! I normally don't have a problem with short X songs, because the high quality of it makes the listener want to hear more of it. Many of these songs were just an X chorus or 2 being repeated. Sometimes, there would be a verse, but that's it. I'm pretty sure the reason artists were featured in the album because without them, they would only last less than 30 seconds! But enough of rambling about the lengths and let's get to the music itself. I won't talk about every song on the album, but one of my favorite songs off the album was School Shooters featuring Lil Wayne. While X didn't do much in the song (like many other songs), Wayne's verse was pretty cool. I also did like the theme of school shootings, especially since we live in a world where mass shootings have become the next Super Bowl! Another song I liked was the outro It's All Fading to Black featuring blink-182. I found it to be a wholesome conclusion to the album. While I'm not much of a blink-182 guy, I thought their part in the album was pretty decent. However, I didn't like all of the songs. Some of them were already released as singles long before the album dropped. I was especially surprised that they released Hearteater as a single. Strange, considering that it was originally gonna be in ?, but was scrapped. I also found Ex Bitch to be a bit overrated, since there isn't a lot of X singing. As I said before, most of these songs are way too short, too incomplete, and too forgettable. What even is The Interlude That Never Ends? It's only 2:30! I'm not saying all of this because I hate X. Like I said before, I'm a fan of X. However, considering the critical failure of skins and BVF being the final album, I'd thought that the level would learn there mistakes from before and mixed the songs better and made them more "complete". However, that mostly wasn't the case. Hell, I'd argue that this is worse than skins, because while skins was short and had some really good songs like Train Food, Guardian Angel, and One Minute, BVF had too much filler, forgettable songs! Overall, this album seems like a unsatisfying conclusion to X's music career. X had scrapped these songs for a reason, and if the label was gonna release them, you think they would not make them short, incomplete garbage! I know X would never want his music to be like this, but unfortunately, I guess the label does. Category:Blog posts